Cyber security has become a significant topic. Nowadays, Internet users are much more aware of Internet threats than they were in the past. Internet users have become more Internet savvy and they know more on how to protect themselves against cyber criminals. As result, many Internet users are not falling anymore for cyber criminals’ common scams and frauds. Since there is a lot of money involved in Internet frauds and scams, cyber criminals are not giving up so easily. Cybersecurity professionals have notice a rise in sophisticated cyber attacks. Cyber criminals have come up with new sophisticated methods to make a profit.
I have a feeling that cyber crime is getting personal. Instead of investing in large scale frauds that are usually quite obvious, cyber criminals started to invest efforts in more sophisticated scams that target small groups of people.
In addition, cyber criminals started to abuse legitimate sources of information in order to gain a profit.
Following are a few examples:
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We can see more and more cases of legitimate sites that have been compromised by cyber criminals and got infected by malware. The unsuspecting Internet user will enter the legitimate site and may get infected by a trojan horse or some other type of malware.
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Most Internet users are not falling anymore for common phishing scams, such as, a fake email that appears to be from a bank or credit card company and is designed to steal the Internet user’s private information. As result, cyber criminals have come up with a new idea. It is called spear phishing. Instead of targeting a large group of people with emails that appear to be from a legitimate service provider, spear phishing scam targets a small group of people. This small group of people will get a fake email (that is designed to steal private or organizational information) that appears to be from someone they know, for example, a work colleague.
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Internet users may be tempted to install dishonest software when it comes in a disguise of legitimate software, sometimes, how ironic, it appears to be an anti-virus software that pretended to find computer viruses on the user’s PC.
In a nutshell, cyber crime is such a lucrative crime that cyber criminals invest many efforts in finding new methods that will enable them to make a profit on the expense of innocent Internet users. It seems that cyber crime has become more personal, targeting individuals instead of large groups of people. It also seems that the abuse of legitimate sources of information by cyber criminals has become a common act.
The only recommendation I can give is to install good and trusted security products that include – a firewall, an anti-virus software, an anti-spyware software and so on. Make sure that the products you install are provided by a legitimate and trusted company or organization.
For safety tips you can see – Simple rules for PC protection.
